Zerubbabel

Good Point. The Mean-to-Mean maxim is intrinsically escalatory, and ends in a total obscuration of the moral distinction between Mean-1 and Mean-2. .

Children can be mean. So .... what? Be mean to them? In my experiences this is how it works: Two individuals conflict. If one can convince the circle of acquaintances that the other is an asshole then being mean to the asshole is morally justified by the circle. Often the circle will even step-in to assist in being mean to the luckless soul who has been labeled "asshole." (Such machinations are the cornerstone of the State's power.) The escape from such expressions of assholishness thinly veiled as righteous indignation, is to never forget that we ALL have a little asshole inside of us trying to get out. .

I hope I'm not tiresome but I will again compare this to another Little Truth. We are all children of our eras. Your language shows that you understand "work" as a wage-earning employment (in this case validated by the State) with a focus on a work ethic underpinned by the needs of employers. Throughout human history up to about 150 Years ago this would not be the understanding of "work." So complete has our transformation into wage slavery been that we do not even recognize it in our own thinking. It is as if it has always been. Consider this linguistic evidence of how our understanding of "work" has evolved: Listen for it in conversation- "work" is used less as a verb and is increasingly used as a noun -the place where one spends the majority of their life- "I have to go to work." It has become an intrinsic part of our lives that we accept and only hope to partition off - TGIF. .

Let me answer this with another Little Truth: Children were once an economic asset - now they are economic liabilities. In the last 150 years, with the paradigm shift of industrialization, there has been an enormous change in the child's self-perception of their usefulness. In the pre-industrial agrarian society children worked. Victorian era child labor in factories was just an extension of this cultural norm. The man who had 10 children was economically blessed. Today each child is an enormous liability. Many studies seek to place a price-tag on the (parasitic) cost of a child - high six figure price tags, some even seven figures for the affluent. While the working child surely had feelings of resentment for having been used as labor they still had to have an intrinsic knowledge of their own usefulness. Today's child can not escape the reality of their uselessness, their parasitic nature, their being a liability to their family - and this can never be compensated for by taking out the trash and cutting the grass. Is this not the source of a new pathos that haunts 20-something-year-olds who try to become useful for the first time in their lives? .

Authentic answer!!! ...which comes from with-in not as the result of rational thinking/education/indoctrination/intellectual stance, but from true introspection. "all the time" is no mere hyperbole and cannot be over-stressed. E.G. computer science is still way behind the human ability to read the myriad of facial muscle configurations and judge the associated emotional communication. But why do you say that it is subconscious and not fully conscious judgments that just happen to be made incredibly fast? .

If given the premise of dangerous knowledge then we choose which of the following we should (morally) do with it (?): Give it to everybody -or- Limit it's dissemination to a small elite group to use it as they will, that is to say- to their advantage. Neither option eliminates the danger inherent in the knowledge. The former option guarantees that the worst sort of people will have it. The later option guarantees an advantage to the elite group and possibly (if Lord Acton is correct) guaranteeing that they become the worst sort of people. Perhaps such a conundrum is the reason that taboo speech is a cultural universal. .

Hey!!!? I invented this about 20 years ago. I've always been a little ashamed being seen walking with my sticks - people do stare. What the guy in the video has wrong is the length of the sticks. Mine are just slightly longer than I am tall. I take standard ski-poles (as the guy uses) and add on another 2-3 feet of aluminum tubing and add in a 3/8-16 coupling nut at the bottom. The tips I use are just threaded rod and lock nut. Bend the threaded rod down so that it bites the ground at the more acute angle that long sticks do. I have worn-out 3 pairs of tips. What the long stick does is to direct upper body power into forward motion and you walk at very fast speeds. If you look at the video that guy is applying force more downwardly in a sort of lifting motion. Your legs hold you up, they don't need help (unless you have bad knees, back, etc). It definitely increases the intensity (calories burned per unit time). But it is not a "whole-body" movement. It targets Back (latissimus dorsi) and Triceps, the same muscles used in the motion of splitting wood. As an old man who still hikes in the mountains (Idaho) I always carry a Staff as long as I am tall. The one I use I made out of a composite tubing (like fiberglass) which breaks into thirds with pool cue-like studs and goes into my pack. The staff is needed on descents and the long length allows you to plant down the trail and support your weight as you go down. Short sticks are useless when the trail is steep. The ultimate would be break-in-half Nordic sticks that also nest together to form a stout staff for descents or come apart to be used on the levels and uphills, made of composites (don't like carrying aluminum poles in lightening storms). Any investors? The biggest downfall of these sticks - the sound can be very annoying. You have to listen to loud music. I personally utilize walking as a sort-of thinking metronome which boosts one's physical and mental metabolism. Think Nietzsche. .

Stefan places many metaphors and analogies into his UPB. Sometimes I find metaphors too indirect, lacking precision and more obscurant than simply stating the concept directly. But what metaphors do marvelously is to force one to take a new and different perspective. That is what I love about Stefans "Little Truth" and "Great Truth." So here is a Little Truth which it seems is orphaned from any Great Truth: Contrary to what it says in the description of the Atheism and Religion Topic -"we are not commies"- We ARE commies! Whatever handle one wants to put on communism: "to each according to need, from each according to ability," or a centrally directed economy, or other definitions (?) ... all these definitions apply to the nuclear family and somewhat to an extended family but fades as we move further away from the core existence of communism as the basic human relationship universally required for the rearing of children - i.e. the propagation of the species. George Lacoff, another metaphor ("framing") user, explains why the Left tends towards communism as they take their childhood communism Little Truth and apply it as a communism Great Truth. I think the Right is correct in portraying Leftist politics as adolescent, because it is. It is based on their communistic experiences as a child that they want to bring forward into the relations between men. If this might be considered a philosophical discussion I suggest that the more essential idea is not communism, but parasitism. Yet the idea is seldom ever rationally discussed and the word itself is always reserved as an ad hom invective. "As yet, no thinker has had the courage to measure the health of a society and of individuals by the number of parasites they can stand." Nietzsche .

So I tried to find BLS's definition of terms and just as you had written it is clear as mud. I especially like the 1984ish logical irony of this: "Persons who are neither employed nor unemployed are not in the labor force." The OP points out a discrepancy in reporting, and a group of people who exist outside of the reporting system. I suggest that this group contains those people outside of the State's system of reporting because they exist outside of the State's system of control. I don't understand your point regarding this.

It is good to set the ground rules for debate. But tied up with the ground rules are some basic premises which should also be disclosed in such a clear and succinct manner. This debate presumes the acceptance of utilitarian action, and the necessary rejection of principle-based action. Participation in the debate is a tacit acceptance of this premise (if only for the sake of argument). I would have expected that this premise would have been rejected in unison by a group supposedly dedicated to UPB such as the NAP. It is the very most basic choice that needs to be made as the premise of any debate. Every question concerning the relations between people is a moral question, IMO.

To be clear we should define our terms - and I could be wrong - tell me. The BLS's "Participation in the Labor Force" = those citizens who are employed on a current W-4 or 1099 wage-reporting system. If this is true then it is to fall into a language trap to conclude that those "Not in the Labor Force" are not working. "Can I 1099 you?" ... "No no. Don't 1099 me. I'll work for $1.50 less" ... "OK." = Another lazy-good-for-nothing person "not participating in the labor force."

I think we have a misunderstanding here. The group of people under discussion are people not in active employment being reported to the IRS, and not on the government system of unemployment compensation. These people are economic outsiders, so to speak.

Zosha, Here is a very simplistic suggestion: Very often when a dialog falls apart it is because of failure in definition of terms. This isn't to say that a dialog is the same as a relationship, but as you have said repeatedly the communication of ideas and emotions is difficult. You and your significant other should, as ingenuously as possible, answer Dsayers' question: "Have you felt loved before? What did it look like?" There is a well known book/theory going around that offers five different ways of answering the question. 1) physical touch, 2) words of affirmation, 3) time together, 4) service and 5) gifting. It is a "small truth" that everybody has a preference among these five "love languages." Mine is authentic words of affirmation with a minor in physical touch. I actually dislike 3 and 4, and wonder at the character of someone who picks 5.

This thread, OP and responses, seems to accept the unquestioned premise that wage slavery (State recognized employment - i.e. "a real job") is the only possible means of economic participation. I think that this large number of people "not in the workforce" likely represent a growing number of microsecessionists. We should celebrate the increase of this number. While I think these people are living a life of much lower affluence than those people "in the workforce," they are living a more authentically liberal life. At some percentage of those "not in the workforce" -at some critical mass- the State and Crapitalism (as Stefan calls crony-capitalism) will collapse. So we can expect as some point in the not too distant future legislation that in some way prohibits opting-out. .

D, I have read in several of your posts your championing of the extreme importance of precision in language. Kudos to that. But don't throw that away now by saying it is not useful. The OP, it seemed to me, asked if the NAP is a reality or an abstract construct. I immediately thought of Robespierre's Goddess of Reason, or perhaps the later de-deified Cult of Reason. The ensuing answers to the OP all seem to vacillate in the same manner, that yes it's abstract ... but not as abstract as "God." It is important to always make clear (as Stefan has in UPB) that principles, moral or otherwise, are abstract constructs of the human mind. [Although not a part of this thread it is equally important to keep in mind that God is abstract as well. I've read countless debates between atheists and theists where the theist of course speaks (apologetically) of God as a real thing and the atheist indulges this error and speaks (polemically) about God as a real thing.] OK, I agree that a direct moral judgment is only one-step away from reality. But for the religious adherent "God" is moral judgment (e.g. WWJD), and for them "God" is still only 1 step away from reality. It seems obvious to me that when we loose God we have to find another system of moral judgment (Enter UPB) - and - some way to make these judgment's sacred. We can raise the next generation to be free to venerate the NAP. But there are lots of people raising their children to venerate voluntary subjugation to the State, and other children are raised to uphold principles of chivalry/nationalism (these children will form our next warrior-class). Even more disturbing is that there are now billions of children being raised to venerate killing in the name of Allah. .

Not "No." Yes. Both things are abstract constructs. Both things are ideas not reality (see the UPB ground rules #1 and #3 in UPB) And there is a connection between the two, and the connection would be stronger if the title was inverted, i.e. "God as NAP." This would follow Feuerbach's thesis that God was created as a repository for man's highest principles. In the God paradigm the principles were still man's principles but the mythical and sacred God made the principles also sacred. I think it proper that we eliminate a God as the mediator between man and his higher principles (the NAP) ... but the big problem is in how do we make the principles (NAP) sacred (and I hope that the word can be understood without a religious connotation)? .

At one time in human development the question was very real. The question of course is a metaphor for scapegoating or sacrificing the innocent for the good of the group. Rene Girard develops this extensively. First the binding of Isaac ended human sacrifice, substituting animal sacrifice. Then Christianity ritualized the great once-and-for-all scapegoat of the innocent messiah. The urge, or thought, to sacrifice an innocent was satiated through ritual, supposedly. The principle of the value of the innocent -or the wrongness of the death of the innocent- became "prime." Then we regressed to our new ideology of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" and the question becomes real again. Today principles, if used at all, have become merely ad hoc tools to achieve supposedly more happy ends. In subservience to this formula the statist justifies all sorts of injustices to the innocent in the name of the happiness of the greater number. Think of all the dissidents that got put on trains to the Gulags. THAT is a more relevant question than the trolley question ... that a few dissidents should die so that the many could live in the happy bliss of communism. Here I would jump to Stef's championing of principled means over more-perfect ends in his Disappointment with the World. In this I think Stef is reacting to our disappointment with our new utilitarian ideology which rejects principled means in favor of perfectly happy ends (utopianism) The trolley question becomes a paradox only as a consequence of accepting "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" as an unquestioned premise. Reject the premise. Join Stef as a Passionate Preacher of Principle, and the question becomes simple. I accept principled means, that ethical action is guided by principles and not anticipated ends. I follow the principles without thought of what might happen as a result. In fact: Fiat justitia ruat caelum (Let justice be done though the heavens should fall.) I'm sorry that 5 are going to die in a horrible accident but I'm not going to sacrifice an innocent person. Let the utilitarian statists look deeply into the eyes of the fat man before they push him in front of the train. Then the answer to their ethical question will be etched in their own psyche. IMHO . .

This is technically not correct. Violate is a cognate, or related word to violence. Although the experts do not seem sure some think the shared root is from PIE root *weie- "to go after, pursue with vigor or desire," with noun derivatives meaning "force, desire" (see venison and Venus). The family of words that derive from this root include the ideas of force and desire. The initiation of force includes a desire and so etymologically qualifies as "violence." Reciprocal or reactive force does not include an element of desire and so is not "violence" but remains merely "force." .